Published in Scientific Papers. Series "Management, Economic Engineering in Agriculture and rural development", Vol. 17 ISSUE 3 Written by George MOISE

This paper presents an alternative method to dry white eggs. Because on thermal treatment the protein denaturation is relatively high, cold drying of the white eggs maintains intact the protein chain. Eliminating the air heating from classic technology will conduct to energy reducing during the process. Also, all products, made of the white egg powder obtained using cold draying, will have complete proteins in amino acids.

Published in Scientific Papers. Series "Management, Economic Engineering in Agriculture and rural development", Vol. 16 ISSUE 4 Written by Daniela PLEȘOIANU, Valentina DIACONESCU

Spa tourism in Romania is a crucial sector of the tourism industry because of its specific features. Economic growth quality of life of modern human being, bring, besides the positive, some negative aspects: stress, power imbalances, negative actions of the environment on the body due to physical and chemical pollution. To mitigate those negative aspects more and more tourists choose spas as a holiday destination. The purpose of the paper was to analyze Amara resort potential for health tourism. Based on a profound documentation and on the collected data on the statistical data provided by National Institute of Statistics, Ialomița National Environmental Protection Agency, the research work was focused to process the data and interpret the results. The main conclusions highlighted the importance of mud, which is the key mean in preventing and treating various diseases. It is successfully used in wraps, baths or massage. Amara spa is one of our country's resorts treating musculoskeletal disorders, gynecological diseases, endocrine disorders, dermatological diseases, hepatobiliary diseases and cures of diuresis. The analysis of the tourists flow over a period of 14 years pointed out that the increased number of tourists is due to the good promotion of the resort and of its high quality services.

Published in Scientific Papers. Series "Management, Economic Engineering in Agriculture and rural development", Vol. 16 ISSUE 3 Written by Vida DABKIENĖ

The paper aimed to measure the biodiversity of Lithuanian family farms using readily available FADN data. The research draws on a sample of 1304 family farms. Farms diversity is expressed by diversity in land use and cropping based on Shannon’s equitability and Simpson’s diversity indices. The effects of farms’ management to biodiversity between farms in terms of specialization, economic size, farming intensity and land area are examined. The biodiversity indices ranged from 0 to 1 (scaled into three intervals), assuming that the closer to 1 were the values of the index the higher was biodiversity of the farm. Lithuanian case analysis suggested that certain measures for strengthening farms biodiversity were necessary as the average values of the biodiversity based on Shannon’s equitability (land use and cropping) and Simpson’s diversity (land use and cropping) indices fell within the medium biodiversity interval. Lower diversity values of Simpson’s diversity in comparison to Shannon’s indices values were obtained across analysed farming types and farm classes. This is likely related to Simpson’s index sensitivity to the number of land use and cropping elements of farms. Though, the Shannon’s equitability index has greater importance to rarer land use or cropping elements. Therefore, for policy purposes both indicators provide valuable insights to enhance and maintain the biodiversity on farms.

The future agriculture will be guided by the compulsions of food and nutritional security, by the concerns of environmental protection, and profitability of farm enterprises. Cropping system research could be highly effective in providing balanced food and regular employment, sustaining soil health, and increasing farm productivity and farm income which would ultimately increase the purchasing power of farmers. Andhra Pradesh was one among the typical cases representing South East Asian conditions registering prominent and favourable shifts in the form of relatively diversified cropping patterns. Study of the dynamics, determinants of cropping systems and their implications is of paramount importance for planning the future agricultural policies. Results of the study indicated that paddy continues to be the most beneficial crop due to its agronomic suitability; economic viability as it is the staple food crop of the region. Similarly implications out of Analyses of rain fed cropping systems, Horticulture and vegetables based cropping system, and Energy utilization of major cropping systems etc. were also discussed and conclusions were drawn to develop the suitable strategies for the sustainable agriculture development in this region.

This exploratory research is based on statistical data about some indicators for the context of rural development, from different countries of EU, but also it is a comparative study of speciality literature regarding sustainable development and rural development, in two neighbouring countries: Bulgaria and Romania. The research is based on a methodology that involves the use of statistical data on leading indicators for the rural development context, from two neighbouring countries, Romania and Bulgaria. By analysing economic indicators we found that in some countries there are large discrepancies between urban zones and rural zones. This discrepancy between rural zones and urban zones is confirmed by environmental indicators, which still have positive influences on other fields, in which there was a positive evolution. Both Romania and Bulgaria, the two countries used in this study benefit from varied tourism resources, both natural and anthropogenic, insufficiently developed and exploited. Through these they can develop rural areas, opting for the development and support of rural tourism, the diversification of the rural population, in order to create new non-agricultural activities as a result of exploitation of the agricultural sector, with implications for increasing the number of jobs and increasing of the employment rate among the rural population.

Published in Scientific Papers. Series "Management, Economic Engineering in Agriculture and rural development", Vol. 17 ISSUE 3 Written by Agatha POPESCU, Daniela PLESOIANU

The paper aimed to analyze the accommodation demand/offer in Romania's tourism using the empirical data provided by the National Institute of Statistics for the period 2007-2015. In 2015, tourists' arrivals accounted for 9,9 million, of which 22.5 % foreigners' arrivals. The total arrivals increased by 42 % in the analyzed period having a good impact on tourist density which reached 500 arrivals per inhabitant and 32 arrivals per square km. In 2015, the number of overnight stays accounted for 23,519 thousands, of which 19 % belonged to the foreign tourists. The economic crisis had a bad impact on the number of arrivals, and overnight stays in the years 2009and 2010. Romania has 6.821 establishments units with accommodation facilities for tourists and 328,000 beds, meaning by 45 % and, respectively by 15 % more than in 2007. As a result, in 2015, the beds-days increased by 43 %, accounting for 81,872 thousand, and the tourism function of Romania reached 1,650 places (beds) per 1,000 inhabitants. Tourists' arrivals have a positive impact on overnight stays proved by the strong position correlation existing between these two indicators, r = 0.849, and by the determination coefficient, R² = 0.7215, which proved that 72.15 % of the variation in overnight stays is determined by the variation of the number of tourists' arrivals. The accommodation offer has been improved year by year to satisfy better tourists' demand, but the seasonality of arrivals has causes the low degree of occupancy. The business in tourism should be focused much more on a better promotion of Romania's tourism offer and on the assurance of a higher quality of services to face the strong competition among countries to attract more tourists.

The economic potential of a country is consistently a primary goal of existence and sustainable development. To achieve this major goal is necessary to undertake strict complex studies to formulate a correct diagnosis and real economic situation and the rationale, on this basis, decisions economic policy and legislative decisions aimed at both time horizons immediate and for longer periods of time. In this context the significance and importance of GDP per capita as synthetic macroeconomic indicator is developed a multifactorial econometric model that includes two exogenous variables, the employment rate over 55 and resource productivity.

One of the consequences of climate change in Sub-Saharan Africa is that farmers would be more exposed to production risk. Therefore, it is imperative to analyse the climate-related risk and maize production in Southwest, Nigeria. Secondary data between 1981 and 2012 were collected on relevant variables and analysed using Growth Function, Co-integration Model (Autoregressive Distributed Lag Approach) and J-P Model. The results confirmed the presence of long-run equilibrium between maize production and temperature, rainfall and relative humidity. The Error Correction Model (ECM) value was -0.0238 for the enterprise. The results of the analysis on the climate-related risk indicated that temperature increased the production risk of maize farmers. It can be concluded that farmers face climate-related risk as temperature increased the production risk of maize farmers. Therefore, stakeholders should create more awareness on the need to always practice eco-friendly activities and put in place coping strategies against the menace of climate change.

Published in Scientific Papers. Series "Management, Economic Engineering in Agriculture and rural development", Vol. 16 ISSUE 3 Written by Radu Lucian PÂNZARU

Company "Fito Agro Plant" was created in 2004 in order to serve farmers in the area of influence. Over time, the company opened three branches in Gorj (Targu Jiu) and Valcea (Mihăieşti and Ramnicu Valcea). The company's activity is quite complex, making the distribution of various types of inputs for agricultural production. In realization of the work and highlighting the financial results were used as tools to document comparison over time, and a number of specific indicators being operated at officiating (turnover, operating revenues, financial revenues, expenses operational, financial expenses, profit or loss, the rate of profit or loss, etc.).The specific activity conducted, it has expressed through favorable results for the years 2014 and 2015 (when achieved profit), but it also discusses situations and less convenient (2013 - losses of the unit).

This analysis of marketing and profitability of Chicken egg business was done with data collected from egg traders in Abia State, Nigeria. A total of 60 egg traders made up of 30 wholesalers and 30 retailers were involved as a panel and supplied answers to questions in a questionnaire administered fortnightly for two months in their market locations across the Agricultural zones. Data gathered were analysed with both descriptive and inferential statistical tools. Chicken egg farmers, rural egg buyers, wholesalers and retailers constituted marketing stakeholders. Other egg market characteristics are: 65.0% of the egg markets were located in urban centres, 38.0% of them located in semi-urban areas with only 4.0% of the markets located in rural communities. Selling prices of the eggs varied along the distributive channel such that bulk of the share of net marketing margin (58.30%) was enjoyed by the chicken egg farmer and the least (4.81%) received by the wholesalers. These notwithstanding, the marketing of Chicken eggs was profitable to wholesalers as they on average realized N 137,764.80 as monthly net returns. Profitability was determined by egg price, marketing experience, amount of fund invested, quantity of eggs sold and transport costs. The wholesale egg traders should take advantage of bank credits to increase their trade capitals and the Abia State Government should maintain the rural and urban roads to help reduce cost of transporting eggs in the area.